Love stories



Source: Here

 I've just finished reading Annie Zaidi's Love  Stories # 1 to 14. And let me tell you one thing- love is messy. In case you hadn't already realized, that is. Love is messy. It's complicated. It's violent- and I don't mean physically. Being in love and loving and being loved are all on some level violent- the violence of the heart is perhaps something one cannot recover from - ever. You get over it, perhaps, but do you ever fully recover?

I remember in some movie one of the characters says " I have loved many people and each of them has taken a little piece of me." Isn't that perhaps the most violent act of all- giving a piece of yourself and taking a piece of someone else and neither of you is ever the same again.The happily ever afters are a dream really- a very unrealistic one. Even the happiest love stories I know of are not happily ever afters. And on some level I think who needs that anyway.

However, I digress. The book that I just finished reading- Zaidi's Love Stories # 1 to 14- is a collection of short stories and each deals with an aspect of love- romantic love. The stories are unexpected and honest. They have that strange quality that's so hard to capture of making one live each of the characters. You cannot help but be involved and wonder and even worry. For me each of these stories contained an 'aha' moment and I'm sure most readers would find this too. The magic of Zaidi's book really lies in the fact that she has somehow managed to capture and express the nuances- the layers- of love if you will. Even the cheesiest isn't necessarily the easiest cheese. They leave you with uncomfortable questions as well. Where does love end and comfort/habit begin? Is all love some kind of mass delusion? What's real? Who decides? When do you decide to trust and why?

A couple of the stories probably could have done with a bit tighter writing or better editing.

In the end though this is probably the best collection of stories coming from the crop of new writers emerging out of India that I have read in a very long time.

Icarus and reflections on a pale blue dot

I've been reading Mona Simpson's A Regular Guy and there's a lovely part in the book where the main character acquires a Matisse. He then gets so attached to it that he cannot stand the thought of it mattering as much as it does and proceeds to give it away. This is the second time that Henri Matisse has entered my life.

Source: Here

The first time was through a friend ( who is no longer a friend, unfortunately) and it was a very specific piece- Icarus. I fell in love with it. I don't know if it's that deep, vibrant blue. Or those exploding yellow stars. Or that wonderful, free falling, almost dancing figure with that beating red heart. There's something so beautiful and tragic about it.

Based on the story of the adventurer who aspired to reach the sun and in trying to attain his dream failed so spectacularly that he must be celebrated. But it's never really failure is it if you dared to dream and dared to defy the gods as it were.Dared to defy your 'humanness'.

Perhaps it meant so much to me then because it came into my life at a time when I was setting out to explore my own life.I was testing the waters.The universe was throwing things my way that were unexpected. It was significant I think in a way that was not yet clear to me and wouldn't be for some time to come. But now, almost a decade later I look at it again and it moves me. The artist who had so much to create that neither pain nor disability would stop him. He found ways to negotiate both. Isn't that what the story of Icarus is anyway? Indeed the story of humanity as a whole in a sense. For all our frailty we must defy the gods. We must - we are compelled - to reach for the stars. We look at the birds and we are compelled to fly. And we have. We have flown and we  have traveled among the stars .We are looking at worlds beyond our gaze. We are not perfect but that which is perfection in us is beyond compare- don't you think?

We no more know why we've been put on this "pale blue dot" " floating along like a smote of dust on a beam of sunlight" , than when we first began wondering about these things. But here we are.

So, there, those are my reflections for a Thursday night. I'll leave you with the following lesson in perspectives from the incomparable Carl Sagan:

Pale Blue Dot (Source: Here)

 We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Of feet of clay and a house sparrow named Ben Franklin

I feel I must write something today. But it's all rather random- the thoughts in my head.

Gaza is being pounded mercilessly by Israel. Israel is getting its share of missile attacks from Gaza. But the power balance remains skewed as always. The world remains divided as usual. I'd rather not say anything about a certain Mr Obama and his stance on the whole thing.

 My uncle and a cousin are stuck in Jerusalem. What was a tour of the holy lands has turned into a nightmare. They finally learn that the holy lands are not quite so holy anymore. If they ever were that is. I wish there was some intelligent insight into the mess that I could provide. But I'm fresh out I'm afraid.

The famous Aung San Suu Kyi was in town yesterday and I was given an opportunity to go meet her which I turned down. Her rather crude fence sitting on the whole Rohingya problem has been rather off putting. As a friend said the other day, it's best not to have heroes- they turn out to have feet of clay anyway.

All this is rather depressing. So turning to slightly more cheerful topics- the sparrow on my balcony has been christened Benjamin Franklin by my sister for his rather founding father-ish aspect and demeanour. She also believes he used to be a cat in his previous life going by the long hours he sits in meditation on our window sill. I personally find fascinating his fascination with the washing machine. Benjamin can sit for hours watching the water swirl and the clothes tumble. Watching him definitely makes clear why they're called house

Sparrow love

sparrows. He loves household sounds of all sort be it the clang of vessels in the kitchen, the pounding of pestle in mortar, the sputter of mustard seeds in hot oil, the sizzle of  frying onions, the whistle on the pressure cooker, the blender- anything really. Lunch preparation is his favourite time of day I have noticed. And he loves our flowers... the geraniums are a particular favourite.

Looking forward to a quiet Sunday reading four books simultaneously ( always a thrilling , if not entirely practical, approach). But on the menu are Annie Zaidi's Love Stories, Mona Simpson's A Regular Guy, Agatha Christie's autobiography and Paul Theroux's short stories.

Here's hoping for peace everywhere...

Ruminations on a cold rainy day

So, a cyclone hit nearby Tamil Nadu state yesterday. And as usual, Bangalore must bear part of the consequence. This came in the form of rain that just still hasn't let up. It's Thursday afternoon and the rain hasn't stopped even one little bit in that time. And it's cold. Colder than I have ever felt here I think in these three years.

The mid-week holiday means that I have pretty much spent the day sitting on one sofa or another in front of my laptop and in front of the tv , eating bread and peanut butter and drinking gallons of green tea. The world outside - at least the glimpses of it that I catch when I look out the one open window in the flat- is drenched. My plants are holding on. Their blooms seem to be able to withstand the wind and the incessant drip drip of the rain.

I just finished watching a beautiful Malayalam movie, Adaminte Makan Abu. I hadn't expected to like it. I ended up loving it. On the face of it , it's a movie about a man at the end of his life who hopes to perform the Hajj in Mecca. But it's so much more. It's about human relationships and what it means to lead a life well-lived. It is about faith and what that means to each of us. Faith has got to be the most personal of all human experiences I think. And in an odd way it dictates our relationships. Or maybe not so odd. The protagonist has lived his whole life with the one desire- to go to Mecca. Not just go to Mecca. But go to Mecca on the terms dictated by his faith. No short cuts and no half measures will do. And so as he sets about arranging for this- the most significant journey of his life, it's the relationships that he's built over a lifetime lived faithfully that help him prepare.And in the end when things don't go as expected it's that faith that helps him live as well and find hope.

I found this movie a great comfort.

So, that was the theme of the day- comfort... and faith.